John Riddell

December 29, 2012 -- The following talk on work by the Communist
International to gather material aid for the Soviet Republic was given
by Suzanne Weiss at the fourth Toronto study session on Toward the United Front, a 1300-page edition the fourth Communist International Congress (1922).

The study session, entitled “The Comintern’s Struggle for Social
Hegemony”, surveyed the Comintern's work in unions, cooperatives, education,
youth organisations and on material assistance to Soviet Russia. The presentation, taking up a speech by Willi Münzenberg, is followed by a
brief biography and a description of the study session. More information on Toward the United Front is available HERE. – John Riddell

December 15, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal via Johnriddell.wordpress.com -- Speaking in Toronto, on November 17, 2012, at a conference against tar
sands pipelines, Art Sterritt (pictured above) of the Coastal First Nations in British
Columbia gave a dramatic account of his peoples’ initiatives for
ecological justice in the province. Sterritt is among the main
spokespersons of the powerful campaign in B.C. against tar sands
pipelines.

Sterritt’s talk (below) offers insight into three important issues in current Canadian social struggles:

Haymarket Books is now taking pre-publication orders of Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, at US$50, a 10% reduction. It is due to be released in November 2012.

To take advantage of Haymarket’s offer, go to Toward the United Front, order the book, go to “check-out” and enter RIDDELL2012 in the “coupon code” field.

To recommend the Brill hardcover edition to your favourite library, go to Brill Academic Publishers and click on “recommend”.

Toward the United Front will also be available from Resistance Books in November.

June 28, 2012 -- A talk presented by John Riddell to the US International Socialist Organization's Socialism 2012 gathering in Chicago, on June 28, 2012. The recording is also available at Wearemany.org, where it first appeared.

Zinoviev and Martov: Head to Head in HalleEdited by Ben Lewis and Lars T. Lih,London: November Publications, 2011, pp. 229 [1]

Review by John Riddell

June 22, 2012 -- Johnriddell.wordpress.com/Weekly Worker, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- The Thrilla in Halle! A ringside seat, just for you, as Gregory
Zinoviev (in the red trunks) and Julius Martov (his are pale pink) duke
it out before delegates of the 700,000-member Independent
Social-Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). The
stakes: should the USPD join the Communist International (Comintern)?
Here at last, after 92 years, the full text of their historic speeches
to the October 1920 USPD congress in Halle, Germany, translated and
edited by Ben Lewis and Lars Lih.

Given that eight of 11 presentations had a European focus, the
discussions were opened fittingly by Montreal scholar Daria Dyakonova
with a paper on a little-studied aspect of revolutionary history here in
Canada: the birth of communism in Quebec.

The pioneers of this movement faced objective obstacles, including
severe repression and formidable opposition by the Catholic Church. In
addition, Dyakonova explained, “after Lenin and especially after 1929”,
the Canadian Communist Party’s “policies were determined from Moscow”.
The line dictated by the leadership of the Communist International
(Comintern) was “often at odds with national or local needs”.

Towards
the end of 1921, an attempt was made to shift the burden of debt to the working
class through higher sales taxes. The German Communist Party opposed this,
demanding instead an increase in the tax on wealth and the seizure of assets.

This
description of Greece in 2012 applies equally to
Germany in 1921.

How
should a workers’ party respond to such a breakdown? The proposals of the German
Communist Party (KPD) included a simple approach to fiscal policy: tax those who
own the country’s productive wealth.

The KPD
was then a member of the Communist International, whose leadership included V.I.
Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Gregory Zinoviev.

Soviet poster dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution and Fourth Congress of the Communist International.

By John Riddell

January 1, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, for more articles by John Riddell, go to http://johnriddell.wordpress.com -- The concept of a workers’ government is the awkward child of the
early Communist International. The thought it expresses is central to
Marxism: that workers must strive to take political power. But in the
early Comintern, it was attached to a perspective that was contentious
for Marxists then and is so now: that workers can form a government that
functions initially within a still-existing capitalist state.

As French Marxist Daniel Bensaid commented, “The algebraic formula of
a ‘workers’ government’ has given rise over time to the most varied and
often contradictory interpretations.”[1]

Let us see what light can be shed on this question by the record of
the Comintern’s 1922 World Congress, recently published in English.[2]
This was the gathering that held the Comintern’s most extensive
discussion of the workers’ government question and adopted its initial
position.

Communist Party of Germany (KPD) member Paul Levi played a leading role in several debates.

By John Riddell

December 4, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, for more articles by John Riddell, go to http://johnriddell.wordpress.com -- Until recently, I shared a widely held opinion that the Bolshevik
Party of Russia towered above other members of the early Communist
International as a source of fruitful political initiatives. However, my
work in preparing the English edition of the Comintern’s Fourth
Congress, held at the end of 1922, led me to modify this view.(1) On a
number of weighty strategic issues before the congress, front-line
parties, especially the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), played a
decisive role in revising executive committee proposals and shaping the
Congress’s outcome.]

When I translated the first page of this congress, I was not far
distant from the view of Tony Cliff, who, referring to the 1921–22
period, referred to the “extreme comparative backwardness of communist
leaders outside Russia”. They had an “uncritical attitude towards the
Russian party”, which stood as “a giant among dwarfs”, Cliff stated.(2)

November 25, 2011 -- http://johnriddell.wordpress.com --The eighth annual conference of Historical Materialism, sponsored by the journal of the same name, held
in London November 10–13 , 2011, featured a coordinated stream of papers
on the history of the world Marxist movement during the era of the
Communist International (Comintern) (1919-43). The 38
presentations in this stream reflected vigorous activity in this field,
while also pointing up some research challenges for historians of the
workers’ movement.

The conference as a whole marked an important expansion of this
event, with some 750 registered participants and more than 400
presentations.

September 11, 2011 -- This article also appears at http://johnriddell.wordpress.com, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with John Riddell's permission -- The influence of the Communist International was decisive in the
early 1920s in winning a generation of black revolutionaries to Marxism.
On this the historians agree. But what did this influence consist of,
and how was it exerted?